by Alex Kane
The only regret he ever had was meeting Charlene. She was one miserable cow.
* * *
The next morning, Jez woke up to a pounding headache and a younger girl next to him. He couldn’t even remember taking her home. Couldn’t remember her name. Not that it mattered. There would be a new one next to him tomorrow morning.
Sitting up, Jez leaned across the bed and reached for the bottle of water. Just as his fingers gripped around the plastic, Maria knocked on the door and peered around it.
‘I’m so sorry to interrupt, Mr Kennedy. But the police are here to see you. They’re waiting in the hallway.’
Frowning, Jez got to his feet and pulled on a pair of shorts as Maria headed back to the main hallway. He followed her out.
‘Mr Jez Kennedy?’
Jez ran a hand through his hair and nodded. ‘Aye, that’s me.’
‘You’re under arrest for perverting the course of justice and accessory to murder in the case of Brian Woods.’
‘Who the fuck is Brian Woods?’ Jez asked. And then he clicked. Woods. Cole Woods’s brother. How the fuck did they know about that?
Jez considered his options. Turn and bolt or profess his innocence. But he was innocent: he hadn’t killed Brian. That had been Billy.
‘Who told you about Brian Woods?’ Jez asked as the officer put him into a set of cuffs.
‘That would be me.’
Jez looked up to see Charlene standing at the top of their marble staircase.
‘You?’
Nodding, she remained on the middle step. ‘I was packing, getting ready to leave you when I discovered a little USB stick. I’d never seen it before, so I popped it into the laptop and you know what I found? A little footage of you and Billy with this Brian lad. I handed it in to the police and turns out they’d found his remains years ago just off the coast of the island. Badly decomposed because of the water. They’ve been looking for his killer ever since. Turns out I’d been living with him the whole time. Well, you as good as killed that lad when you got rid of his body.’
Jez launched himself at the staircase. He wanted to kill her there and then. But the police were heavy on him, dragging him outside.
‘Just when you thought you’d got away with murder, eh? Told you you’d regret not giving me a divorce. I was going to leave the USB, forget I’d seen it. But then you told me no, that I couldn’t have one. So, I decided to fuck you over. Have a nice life in prison, Jez.’
Chapter Seventy-Three
Sitting down with a beer, Billy reached for the remote control to switch on the television. There wasn’t much else to do as a retired police officer. He’d thought about taking up a hobby. It seemed that hobby was drinking until he passed out and forgot all the shit he’d done to cause himself so much guilt and grief.
Just as the television came to life, there was a knock at the door. He got up to answer it and there were two of the officers from his station stood there, sullen expressions etched on their faces.
‘Jenkins, Whitler?’ he said. ‘What you two doing here?’
‘Billy, we need you to come down to the station.’
‘Can’t cope without me already? Christ, I’ve only been away a few weeks.’ He laughed but they didn’t share in his humour.
‘Billy, we’re sorry to have to do this,’ Jenkins said.
‘We’re arresting you for the murder of Brian Woods.’
Billy didn’t hear the rest of the spiel. The beer bottle slipped from his hand and smashed on the hardwood floor. His ex-colleagues cuffed him and led him out to the car.
In truth, he’d always known this day would come eventually. Jez had kept footage. It was bound to get out one day.
‘Mind your head there, Billy,’ Whitler said as he bent down to climb into the car.
He could plead innocence. But what was the point? Being arrested was almost like a release. He could finally stop living a lie, stop trying to cover his tracks. They’d get Jez eventually if they hadn’t already. There was every possibility that Billy could be sent back to Spain to be tried there. It was only what he deserved.
He was a killer. He was an ex-cop. Billy recalled the story Jez had told him about the officer who’d gone to prison and ended up in a wheelchair. He tried to block it out, but it hung around in the back of his mind.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Eddie stood by the door of the flat, his suitcases at his feet and a solemn look on his face. Arabella hadn’t allowed him to talk his way out of what he’d done. He’d been honest, and had said that he’d hoped that because he’d told her the truth, she would find it in her heart to forgive him. She’d laughed.
Eddie had told Arabella that when he bought the salon from a guy named Rory, he hadn’t known that Scarlett was the manager of the place. If he had, he wouldn’t have gone near it. That didn’t change the fact that Eddie couldn’t keep his dick in his trousers for the ten months that Arabella had been in prison. He’d bought her the salon out of nothing other than guilt. Good, she’d thought. He should feel guilty.
‘Have you got everything? I don’t want you turning up because you’ve forgotten stuff,’ Arabella said, making sure her tone was flat.
‘Yeah,’ Eddie said. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Arabella. If I could go back and change things I would.’
‘But you can’t.’
Eddie sighed. ‘The salon’s yours. I won’t interfere.’
Arabella nodded and opened the door. That was the way she wanted it. She wouldn’t stay at the salon forever. Eventually she’d move on. Maybe go abroad, start a new life away from Glasgow altogether. But for now, all she wanted was to be on her own. She had to learn to love herself for who she was, learn how to trust the people she surrounded herself with. Over her life she’d chosen to be around people who only cared about themselves; it was time for Arabella to be selfish for a change.
‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘Have a nice life, Eddie.’ She didn’t mean it in a nasty way, she genuinely wanted him to be happy. But she couldn’t have him in her life.
‘You too, Arabella.’ He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. It took her all her strength not to tell him to stay. Because that would be the easiest thing to do, wouldn’t it? Just forgive and forget. But she couldn’t do it.
Eddie turned and walked out of the flat and Arabella closed the door behind him, before sinking to her knees and sobbing silently into her hands.
* * *
When she opened up the salon the next day, Arabella decided that she wanted to change the name. ‘Hair Envy’ wouldn’t have been her choice. There was only one name that would fit, and it was the least that Arabella could do after bringing Roxanne back into Scarlett’s life.
‘Morning,’ Arabella said as the stylists started arriving.
She told them about her idea to change the name of the salon to ‘Scarlett’s’ and they loved it. Arabella had a lot of work to do with the place: she wanted it refurbished and kitted out with the best of equipment. Eddie would be responsible for that. That would be the only contact she would have with him. It was the least he could do in memory of Scarlett.
If someone had told Arabella back when she was a kid in the care system that this was where she would be now, she’d have told them to fuck off. But standing at the reception desk, taking in her surroundings, Arabella was going to make sure that she turned her life around. No more crime, no more fake friends, no more prison.
* * *
Arabella stood outside the hospital room and stared through the glass at the woman in the bed. Her heart thrummed in her chest as a wave of nausea took over. She hadn’t seen this woman in twenty years, but there were things that had to be said.
Pushing the door open, she stepped inside and the woman opened her eyes. Staring at her from the bed, it was clear that she didn’t know who Arabella was.
‘Mum?’ Arabella said.
The woman’s expression turned from fatigued to shock and she gasped, but said nothing. Arabella moved
closer to her, and sat on the chair next to the bed.
The woman who she used to call Mum, was yellow in colour and looked a lot older than her fifty years. It was quite apparent that she was on her death bed. Arabella didn’t know how to feel about that. She viewed her differently now to when she was just eight years old.
‘I contacted the social work department to find out where you were. I just wanted to, well…’ she paused. ‘I don’t know what I wanted to do. I suppose I just needed some sort of closure. I always wondered what happened to you after I was taken into care. I always wondered if you got sober, started a new life. Maybe had more kids? I don’t think that’s the case, is it?’
The woman shook her head gently.
Arabella stared down at her, and a mixture of peace and sadness came over her. Arabella had no other family. Her only surviving blood relative was this woman lying in a hospital bed, dying through liver failure and lung cancer from the smoking. If she’d done her job as a mother, maybe things would have turned out differently for Arabella. Maybe not. Parents couldn’t always be blamed. Adults made their own choices. Just like Arabella had when she’d gone to prison. Just like when Eddie slept with Scarlett, or when Roxanne murdered Scarlett and Keiran.
‘I—’ the woman gasped. Arabella leaned forward to listen. ‘I’m sorry.’
She hadn’t expected that.
‘Me too, Mum. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you to get your act together and be there for me. It’s been a shit couple of decades, but I’ve survived it.’ Her throat throbbed against the emotion she fought hard to hold in. Seeing her mother lying there was harder than she’d expected. She couldn’t watch this woman, her mother, die from alcoholism. She’d abandoned Arabella as a child. She didn’t deserve Arabella’s sympathy.
Arabella smiled, squeezed her mother’s hand and got up from the chair before heading out of the room.
There were others who did deserve her thoughts and sympathies, like Scarlett and Keiran. They didn’t have to die because of what she’d done in her life due to her abandonment issues. It wasn’t their fault that Arabella had clung to the wrong people because she’d never had a real relationship with anyone.
The least that Arabella could do now was begin to build and live her life to the fullest, in memory of them.
The one thing she had learned from all of this was that not all people were bad, but then again, not all people were good. She would keep her guard up, always.
A letter from Alex
Firstly, I want to thank you for choosing to come back to me for the release of The New Friend, my sixth book with Hera Books. It’s always so exciting and nerve racking when I know the book is out of my hands and into yours, but I really do love to see it out there in the world. I love when you get in contact via my social media pages, it really motivates me to get moving with the next one.
This is the first book I have written, having come back out of lockdown and gone back to work full-time. Having been used to writing ‘full-time’ between March and August 2020, I didn’t know how I was going to manage it. But I have, and I have to say that this one has been my favourite.
I began writing The New Friend in July of 2020, so I did get a head start on it before going back into some sort of normality. I thoroughly enjoyed creating these characters, and taking them out of Scotland and down to Spain for part of the book and I feel like I pushed these characters to their limits. I particularly liked Roxanne, even though she was a horrid woman. I like creating a ‘bad lassie’ and she definitely fits that description.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on The New Friend, as I said, it really does make me so thankful that I do what I do, and motivates me with the next book.
You can contact me on my social media pages:
www.facebook.com/alexkanewriter
www.twitter.com/AlexKaneWriter
www.instagram.com/alexkanewriter
Or you can email me:
[email protected]
Once again, thank you so much for coming back. I’m still blown away by how much my books have taken off with Hera Books, and I’ll be forever grateful for the opportunity to write for them, and you.
Best Wishes
Alex Kane
Acknowledgements
I want to start by thanking all at Hera. Keshini Naidoo and Lindsey Mooney continue to work so bloody hard for their authors, and really put us first. I’m forever grateful to them.
Keshini, your structural edit notes always help me to see a bigger picture, and you’re always there to answer my many, many questions. Thank you so much.
I want to thank my line editor, Jennie. You really went to work on this and helped me to pick out all the little details to make The New Friend the best version of itself. Thank you so much.
Thank you to my proof reader, Andrew Bridgmont. You did a fab job on the tiniest details.
Thank you to Jo Bell at Bell Lomax Moreton. I still can’t believe I have you, Keshini and Lindsey supporting me. It’s the best journey and I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.
A special thank you goes out to a family member of mine, Graham Cordner. You answered my police procedural questions with great detail, and I feel very lucky to have an ex-DCI on hand to offer his expertise. Hope you’re enjoying your retirement, you deserve it.
I want to thank my family. My mum and dad are always so encouraging and keen to know what the next project is, and my mum is always one of the first to read my books.
My final and biggest thanks of all goes to my husband, Chris. You sat down with me in the middle of the first draft when I had a mental breakdown, not knowing where to take the storyline. You talked me through the characters, listened, helped me make a large story board and guided me towards solving a plot issue. You’re incredible and I love you more than ever.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Hera
Hera Books
28b Cricketfield Road
London, E5 8NS
United Kingdom
Copyright © Alex Kane, 2021
The moral right of Alex Kane to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781912973804
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Look for more great books at www.herabooks.com